Everything you need for tonight’s soiree against the Buffalo Hockey Club.
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Game Time: 6:00PM CST
TV/Radio: NBC Sports Chicago, ESPN+, WGN-AM 720
Bills Mafia: Die By The Blade
What just a week and a half ago looked like it might be less exciting Sunday night counter-programming to The Beloved on the west coast has suddenly become a potentially fun matchup between two teams still trying to find their place in the primordial ooze that is the first quarter of the NHL season.
No point in looking anywhere else. This is where the main focus will be tonight.
It needs to be said at the top that the most likely scenario is that the Hawks long-term success will not hinge on the departure of Henri Jokharju, no matter how he does in Buffalo. At least the Hawks had better hope not. And yet you can’t help but ignore it’s another burned first round pick, assuming Alex Nylander continues to do a fearsome impression of “Memoirs Of An Invisible Man” as he has the past couple weeks.
It’s also one of the stranger sagas for a young player in the Hawks system.
What was so weird is that usually, Joel Quenneville would rather have Malort pudding than play young d-men. He was immediately enamored with Jokiharju last year. Now, that could have been out of desperation. Connor Murphy was hurt, not that Q would ever warm up to him, and the rest on display was trash. Jokiharju was at last mobile and had some skill. Remember, Q even flirted with trying to keep Boqvist around, such was his opinion of the Hawks blue line.
Jokiharju’s time in Chicago was up and down. He was up against it by starting his NHL career with Duncan Keith at perhaps his jumpiest and most disinterested, depending on the night. There were times he looked pretty calm, and others you didn’t really notice him, and others where he was getting buried. Pretty standard stuff for a teenage d-man.
But make no mistake, Jokiharju’s handling last year had a lot to do with the Hawks terrified of handling Brent Seabrook the way he deserved, and still does. The Hawks sent Jokiharju to the World Juniors, even though he didn’t want to go, because Connor Murphy was returning and the numbers indicated someone had to go. That bought them a couple weeks. They ultimately decided to keep him in Rockford because shuffling Slater Koekkoek, Carl Dahlstrom, and Gustav Forsling was a lot easier than playing Jokiharju every game and figuring the rest out. It had nothing to do with what made the Hawks better or his development.
It’s also weird how quickly he faded in their eyes. Jokiharju wasn’t terrible with them last year, even if he didn’t flash. But he went from easily making an opening night roster to suddenly below Ian Mitchell in their eyes down the road? And in only a couple months?
Clearly, something went on behind the scenes. It wasn’t much of a secret that Jokiharju wasn’t pleased about going to the WJC, and no more enthralled with the idea of spending half the season in Rockford. And the Hawks have never had much patience with kids who don’t follow their instructions silently. Generally that’s a good rule, but you do want some ambition in your prospects as well.
Jokiharju was also a victim of the Hawks slapdash, not-thought-through summer where they acquired de Haan and Maatta, who both had multiple years on their contracts left. How are they going to fit Mitchell onto the roster next year, even without the Finn taking up a spot? It’s jammed.
And if Mitchell and maybe Beaudin/Krys end up being contributors or more, and Boqvists fulfills his promise, no one’s going to notice Jokiharju’s absence. That’s what the Hawks are betting. The Sabres are certainly happy to have him.
Still, the last 10 years, the Hawks first round picks have essentially gotten them a season and a half of Teuvo Teravainen and nothing in return, a decent center in Dylan Strome but certainly no sure thing, Nylander who might not even make it out of this season, whatever Ryan Hartman was, two months of Thomas Fleischmann, and Boqvist and Dach. One was also moved along for Antoine Vermette, which hey, that works. Another was for the second go around of Andrew Ladd, which didn’t.
Here’s just a sampling of players the Hawks might have gotten with those picks: Evgeny Kuznetsov, Rickard Rakell, Jared McCann. Not exactly a great list, other than Kuznetsov back in 2010. But certainly the ones thatt have been moved along coudl have gone for more, or you’d hope they would.
Which makes Jokiharju’s trade even stranger. Certainly his value couldn’t have been hurt by letting him rip up the AHL for half of a season, or coming up when Connor Murphy invariably got injured. Maybe it wouldn’t have been too much more than Alex Nylander, but what these first round picks have become is a big reason why the Hawks are only now just putting in place a second generation after the glorious first one in the One Goal Era. Danault and Teuvo certainly would have helped with that.
Oh well.
Jeff Skinner – It’s not a very ornery bunch along the Falls these days, so we’ll start with the leader of the “Yeah, But Who Gives A Shit?” brigade. Tamzarian here has 252 career goals in nine seasons plus this one, which means he’s averaged just a tick under 30 goals every season. And he’s scored over 30 four times. And not a single one of them has mattered. He’s never even sniffed a playoff team with Carolina or Buffalo. The Canes, not exactly bursting with finishers, punted him to Buffalo last year and suddenly were conference finalists. Certainly not all his fault, but certainly being categorized and world-class asshole is. At some point a 35-goal scorer has to matter, otherwise you’re just doing the scoring because someone has to score goals on a given night. Skinner might already be there.
Rasmus Ristolainen – Nothing to do with him, he just sucks. And he has sucked for a long time. And the only people who can’t seem to recognize that he sucks is the Buffalo front office. Even most other NHL front offices realizes he sucks, because the Sabres haven’t been able to find a trade partner. Usually you can fool someone. The Sabres can’t.
Vladimir Sobotka – Harkens back to the days when Blues fans would massively overrate a player because he had one good game against the Hawks once. We never thought we’d miss them.
Sabres
Notes: Eichel only had four goals last night, so Hawks might want to, y’know, keep an eye on him…Tage Thompson was called up last night after the game so he might replace Okposo on the fourth line, as Okposo got hurt again if you can believe it…Rasmus Dahlin got benched last night, but it’s unlikely he’ll come out of the lineup completely…Marcus Johansson has been hurt for a while, which is why Evan Rodrigues is the second center at the moment…
Hawks
Everything you need for tonight’s tilt in the Coliseum, where they come to see ’em.
Guys…I think Pekka Rinne has a terminal case of shit hip! After basically laughing publicly at the Hawks’ terrible performance a couple weeks ago, Rinne got himself laughed right out of the game tonight, giving up 4 goals on 14 shots. Ya hate to see it. And this shit went full-on DLR. Let’s get to the bullets:
–Yes, Rinne was bad and Saros wasn’t great either, but the Hawks do deserve credit for playing better this time around. At first it didn’t seem that way—they spent way too much of the first period in their own zone, but they capitalized on bad goaltending and also a beautiful play from Kirby Dach to Dominik Kubalik. So it was a bit of luck and skill combined. And the pass from Dach to Kubalik was exactly why I’ve been complaining about Dach being marooned on the fourth line. He makes plays, he’s already improving his ability to hold onto the puck, and playing him with other skilled linemates will help the team now (see: tonight’s assist) and Dach’s development overall. Playing him with fourth-line bum slayers like Zack Smith will not. (Nothing against Smith even, I’m just making a point.) Doesn’t seem that hard to figure out playing Dach on the wing with Kampf and Kubalik is better than Dach centering two oafs, but whatever.
–The other funny thing about tonight was that the Hawks got domed in possession, but stats be damned I suppose. They had just a 45, 37, and 29 CF% in each period, respectively, and they were outshot 41-24, but thanks to ‘Ole Shit Hip not being able to stop much of anything and Saros not being much better, the number that really counts was in our favor the whole time.
–And let’s just be honest, the air raid offense was in full effect tonight. Seabrook’s goal was a fluky one that Rinne should have had, but Kampf’s goal was off a fantastic end-to-end play, where the Hawks got control behind their own net, moved the puck up and out, and passed it perfectly from Maata to Shaw to Kampf. Kubalik’s aforementioned goal came off a great play. Same with Nylander’s first goal. And you know what? I’ll be magnanimous about Nylander’s second too because it was a damn good shot set up by a great pass off the boards by Saad. The Hawks didn’t always control the puck or the play but they were able to get rushes and bury their shots. Would be nice if they could maybe hold onto the puck and stop giving up over 40 shots a night, but you know what they say about gift horses.
–Alex DeBrincat was excellent tonight even though he didn’t actually put the puck in the net. His ability to keep plays alive, and in particular getting the pass to Patrick Kane on the fifth goal, were outstanding. Piece of Shit Austin Watson wanted to obliterate him but couldn’t, and Garbage Dick didn’t miss once he got the pass.
–Lehner was fantastic again as well, let’s not forget that. Granted, facing 41 shots seems like an easy night with this team, but he still finished the night with a .951 SV% and absolutely kept the Hawks in it in the early going before the game was definitely in hand.
And with that, let’s not delay this DLR any longer…
Line of the Night: “That was a bad goal.” —Eddie Olczyk, stating the very obvious after Seabrook’s knuckleball on Rinne
Beer de jour: Mercury by On Tour Brewing
Everything you need for tonight’s ho-down in Music City.
vs. 
RECORDS: Hawks 7-7-4 9-6-3
PUCK DROP: 7pm
TV: NBCSN Chicago
WE ALL LIVE IN A YELLOW TRAILER: On The Forecheck
You probably didn’t expect, after that complete shellacking two weeks ago in the same venue, when these two met up again the Hawks would be only three points behind the Predators. And with a win tonight in regulation, the Preds would be feeling hot giardiniera breath on their necks. Such is reality, which is what happens when various parts of your team rotate going haywire for a couple weeks.
The Preds have lost five of six coming into this (a couple in extra time), while the Hawks have sucked up 10 of 13 points in the meantime. Which is how you get this standing. That doesn’t mean these teams are just three points apart in quality overall, and you saw that the last game these two played. The Hawks haven’t been rolled like that since the Suhonen or Yawney days, and perhaps was the start of the process that got the Hawks to change their ways…however minor or major that actually was.
So what’s up with the Preds? Why has it fallen out of gear for them? Well one, the goaltending has been terrible. Pekka Rinne has only had one good start since that October disaster (for the Hawks), and it came against the Red Wings which barely counts. In his other three starts his SV% is .797. Saros has been better in the meantime, though he couldn’t stop that nine-goals-of-fun the Avalanche hung up on them.
The offense hasn’t been all that consistent either. They managed one goal against the Sharks, and one goal against the Rangers in this streak. When they have gotten goals, Rinne has employed the Roger Dorn defense in net.
Is that what the Preds are overall? Probably not, though they’re not an unholy force either. Their Corsi-percentage is just at tick over even. Their expected-goals is just a tick above that. Which is a tad strange for the Predators. And digging a little deeper, it gets a touch confusing.
In terms of attempts, the Preds give up a lot of them. Bottom-10 in the league. They also generate a fair amount for themselves. But when it comes to chances, it’s the opposite. They keep teams to the outside for the most part, but they also don’t get to the prime areas enough themselves. There’s a lot of noise in the Predators’ game right now, in that there’s a lot of stuff happening but not a huge portion of it really means anything. Still, when Rinne is off to the Kerry Wood Memorial Zoo then those half-chances and winged-hopes from the outside are still ending up in twine.
It’s generally not a good sign when your two leading scorers are d-men. One you can get away with. The Preds have a clear line from their top six to their bottom six and their top pairing to their bottom pairings. When Josi and Ellis are on the ice, good things happen and the Preds are on the right side of the ice. Same goes for either Matt Duchene‘s or Treat Boy’s line. But when Nick Bonino or Kyle Turris is the center, again, the Predators back up.
That’s probably why the Preds have made no secret they’d like to move Turris’s ass along, in another brilliant David Poile move. He’s currently centering their fourth line for the rate of $6M a year. They could also probably use another puck-mover on the second or third pairing. Didn’t they have one once? I seem to remember they did. He was pretty good, right? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Another factor the Preds might want to keep an eye on is that they’re currently shooting over 10% at even-strength, which leads the league by nearly a full percentage point. That is likely to come down, and then where will they be?
Turning to the Hawks, who will get Connor Murphy back tonight. While no team should need Connor Murphy this much, the Hawks do and he’s simply been their best d-man last season and the brief time he was around this one. At the moment he seems slotted on the third pairing, as Colliton doesn’t want to mess up what he’s got going with Keith-Gus and de Haan-Seabrook. This won’t take more than a period to change, given the mobility the Hawks need to counter the Preds.
Robin Lehner will be in goal, and he’ll probably need to perform a few miracles like he did last time in Nashville just to keep the Hawks from getting embarrassed. Hopefully this time if he does that it’ll result in points.
This will be something of a test of the Hawks new, aggressive, Loyola-Marymount ’89 ways. Then again, so was Vegas. The Hawks simply couldn’t deal with the Preds speed at forward last time, and they were turning the puck over before they knew they had it. This meant the Preds defense could pinch and move up in the zone to their hearts’ content, as there was no threat the other way.
If the Hawks are still serious about getting behind the opponent’s defense, while risking their defense and center being outmanned down low in their zone, they might get the Preds’ defense to back up. At least it could provide a quick outlet for a defense that’s going to be under serious pressure from the off, even if it’s just laying it out into the neutral zone and causing races back. But going back is where you want the bottom four D of the Preds. It hasn’t worked out well for them lately. The risk of course is that furious Preds forecheck will have even more fun with even less manpower and options for any puck carrier below his net or deep in his zone for the Hawks.
You’d think there’d be a measure of pride for the Hawks here as well. They were made to look like a high school team their last visit. That will still be fresh in the memory banks. Pekka Rinne was basically laughing at them in the postgame. The Hawks still like to think they carry the most pedigree in any matchup. It’s fading, but they still cling to it. Perhaps now would be the time to show it.
